I once was a crazy four year old kid and I did something very stupid. I was at my dad’s house and it was almost time to go to bed, but I just had to act like I was a master of the flute. I could play more beautifully than anyone else in the world. I was standing on top of a stage, or to anyone else’s eyes, a footrest, fake playing a plastic flute. My imagination was running wild until I was interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Keiran get down from there. You are going to hurt yourself,” called my dad from across the room.
“No Dad, I’ll be fine,” I replied.

As soon as I said that, I tripped and crashed onto the floor. I felt a sharp pain in the back of my throat and I started to scream and shake. The pipe had punctured the back of my throat. My dad rushed over with a look of worry in his eyes. He helped me up and carried me to the bed as a stream of tears rolled down my cheek. I sat up in bed thinking about what happened and about the excruciating pain in my throat. Eventually, I fell asleep to the sound of my own tears.

I woke up as I heard my mother coming through the door. I tried to sit up but was pulled down by the ache in my throat. I almost burst into tears, but I had enough strength to push myself up. I felt my feet move from under me and I started walking to the door. My mom ran over to me and embraced me.

“How do you feel?” she asked.
“I don’t feel good and my throat hurts,” I replied.
“On a scale of one to ten, one being good, and ten being really bad, how do you feel?” she questioned.
“Seven,” I replied but in a hushed voice. It hurt to even talk and I think she could hear it in my voice.
She walked into the other room to talk to Dad and shortly after she walked out to tell me something.
“Keiran, we're going to the hospital,” she told me.

I went out the door without a sound. We got to the hospital and walked inside. I sat on a chair, while my parents talked to the people up front. My parents came to sit down with me and not long after that my name got called. I walked slowly to the doctor's office, scared of what might be on the other side. My dad opened the door and the doctor was waiting. He told me to take a seat so he could examine my throat. Then, he said he needed to put a popsicle stick down my throat. I didn't want to do that so I started to scream until I finally gave up and let him do it. It did not feel good! I felt like I was going to throw up and choke at the same time. My injury was more severe than I thought and we had to stay in the hospital. I had punctured my soft palate and the doctors were worried that it might get infected.

I felt a sharp pain in my hand as a needle broke my skin. I looked down to see an IV stuck in my hand. I had to roll around an IV pole. We went back to my room and I fell asleep.  I saw a beam of light as I opened my eyes.

“How are you feeling Keiran?” Mom whispered.
“Okay,” I answered.
“Do you want to watch a movie?” She asked.
“Yes!” I replied.
“Let’s go get one,” she said.

She helped me out of bed and I walked over to the movie rack that had about 50 movies. I saw a variety of movies, but I decided to watch a fairy princess Barbie movie. I walked back over to my bed, while my mom put the disk into the TV. I watched Barbie movies for two days straight until I was allowed to go home. Then I got my IV taken out and my parents drove me home. My throat still felt like it had just been cut, and it hurt to move too much. When we arrived back home, I spent the next two weeks watching TV. My throat hurt so I spent meal time eating ice cream. Any other four year old kid would have loved to get hurt and eat ice cream, but it actually was horrible.

I learned a very important lesson from this experience though. I learned that you need to trust your parents because they know what’s best for you. More importantly, I need to trust the people around me. I still have a hard time listening to my parents, but remembering all that had happened reminds me of the importance of trust.